Brecht & de Pizan: Similar Views, Different Methods

Bertolt Brecht’s Mother Courage and Her Children and Christine de Pizan’s Deeds of Arms and of Chivalry are associated in relation to European war history. Both authors’ writings reflect similar ideas that war is righteous and honorable. They also recognize its financial importance in their societies, and don’t see reason for the war to cease. However Brecht touched on the more negative aspects such as famine through concentrating on civilian life, while de Pizan focuses on more optimistic views of creating a better atmosphere for the soldiers.

The first step in the evaluation of these views is to understand the author’s ties to the material. Brecht was a German exile who wrote this play in the early twentieth century about a war which occurred hundreds of years before, during the seventeenth century. Perhaps he found interest in the Thirty Years War because of its religious concerns, and because of the prospect of war during his era. His own mother was a Protestant, wh...